I am working hard on putting the final touches on my next two books.   The Witch and Eldritch Witchery . They are not quite ready for full on press releases or product announcements yet,  but I am very, very excited about them. The Witch "The Witch" is designed to be used with "Basic Era" games.  Games that were released in the late 70s and early 80s and whose legacy is being continued with games like  Labyrinth Lord and Basic Fantasy RPG . The Witch will feature a new character class, the witch, and witchcraft Traditions so you can play any type of witch from fantasy, pulp or faerie tale.  In addition there are going to be new monsters associated with the witch as well as tons of new spells and magic items.  Many of which I have playtested over the last 12 years and some even dating back to my original notes I had written on the witch back in 1985. Also included are appendices for extending the "Magic-User" class into a proper ...

NON-LETHAL AND WEAPONLESS COMBAT PROCEDURES I will freely admit; the first time (the first few times, actually) that I looked at this section, I let out a hearty "What the F*#$??" At first glance, this really looks like the definition of the chaotic mess that AD&D has a rep for being. It's really not, though. Once you dive in and read it, not only does it make sense, but it's pretty damned elegant. I've even found myself wondering how tough it'd be to directly convert the entire combat system to these rules. This brings me to my one complaint about the weaponless combat sub-system. ...It's a sub-system. What I mean is, AD&D already has a combat system in place; why design an entirely different set of rules that have no connection whatsoever to normal combat, just to handle grappling, pummeling, and overbearing? Was it needed? That's probably why most of us just decided to use good old-fashioned attack rolls with non-lethal damage appl...

Thought everyone might be interested to know that I have revised and updated both Age of Conan pamphlets.  They can, as always, be found on my D&D resources page at http://www.grey-elf.com/dnd/

At last! I got approvals for Monstrous Mayhem this morning and have ordered the proof copy to review.  I'm not sure why MM was approved faster than the S&S Core Book, but can only imagine it's because MM is much shorter.  Perhaps softcover gets approved more quickly as well?  Who knows.  In any case, one of the two is approved, which is definitely a step in the right direction, assuming that the proof looks good. I won't be putting MM up before the core book; it seems disingenuous to put the supplement up for print sale before the core rules go up.  I will, however, now begin working on the design of the Basic Set for print--no, of course it won't be free--but it should be pretty low-priced.  I'll keep the margin low as I can. Meanwhile, my friends, we need YOU to spread the word!  Tell people about Elf Lair Games, and about Spellcraft & Swordplay!  The more copies I sell, the closer I am to getting my head above water, and giving you ...

Fate Points A lot of old-school DMs will blanch at this idea, but I wanted to give my Age of Conan game a more over-the-top, heroic and pulpy feel this time around...plus I wanted a way to give a little something back to my players since the pre-written module I'm running is at places quite railroady, and I haven't been able to come up with good ways to fix that. So, I've implemented Fate Points, mostly as found in the Castles & Crusades Castle Keeper's Guide. Fate points are a character control/storytelling tool that have become very popular in the last decade or so, and let characters perform over-the-top feats of bravado, and mitigate the sheer randomness of the dice when things are just going really bad. For Age of Conan, my implementation is thus: Heroic Feat: Characters can spend 1 FP to add an extra die to their roll, keeping the normal amount (that is, if they're rolling 2d6 for an attack, they roll 3d6 and keep the best 2d6). Heroic Feat can b...

Betrayer of Asgard, Part One   Our band of (anti) heroes found themselves and a companion, the Aesir thief (and distant kinsman of Valder and Hrogar) Olaf One-Arm, fleeing through the Blue Mountains between Asgard and Vanaheim, bearing with them a great treasure, a drinking horn of ebony, accented in gold, covered with strange, runic writing.  They were being pursued by eighteen Vanir warriors, led by the indomitable and vicious Rorik Hoddersson. Using quick thinking and some sorcerous power courtesy of Merhotep, the group managed to use a rope to scale a 30-foot-high sheer cliff wall, where they took shelter on a rocky outcropping, and cut down the Vanir as they approached. Luukas made an assassination attempt against Rorik, but though the warrior fell, he was uncertain if he succeeded in killing the man, who was borne off by one of his followers. Merhotep revealed himself as a necromancer at last, animating the dead bodies of the Vanir as they fell, to set the corpses upon ...

That's right, folks--we're gearing back up to start the Age of Conan OD&D game back up again this Sunday.  I know what you're thinking, but it's entirely coincidental that it's happening around the same time as the Conan movie hit theaters. At the end of July, when classes ended, I offered to pick the game up again, and was gratified to see that there seemed a lot of enthusiasm for it.  It just so happened that Robert was able to wrap up his turn at GMing right around now. In any case, looking forward to diving back in.  I will be running another Mongoose adventure, Betrayer of Asgard , converting mostly on the fly.  The adventure seems interesting, a bit railroady in places, but we'll see how it goes. In any case, for those who were following along with the game, campaign blogs will start up again next week! I've also tagged all Conan-related posts, should anyone wish to go back and refresh themselves on our previous exploits and my previous C...